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Laurie Stathopoulos

There are lots of articles and essays of interest to modern Pagans out there, sometimes more than I can write about in-depth in any given week. So The Wild Hunt must unleash the hounds in order to round them all up.

According to a Gallup poll, confidence in organized religion has reached an all-time low in the United States. Only 44% of those polled had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in “the church or organized religion” today. Quote: “Two major findings apparent in Gallup’s confidence in the church and organized religion trend are, first, the long-term decline in Americans’ confidence in this societal institution since 1973, and second, the suppressed confidence among Catholics relative to Protestants starting in 1981, and becoming more pronounced by 2002.” What does this mean for adherents to the “unorganized” religious movements like modern Paganism? Will this cause our numbers to grow, or will it simply mean the continued ballooning of the “nones” (and will the UUA succeed in reaching out to them)?

Last year I linked to a news story about a brawl that took place between Laurie “Lorelei” Stathopoulos of Crow Haven Corner and Joanna Thomas of New England Magic in Salem, Massachusetts. Now, court proceedings for that case have finally happened, with Stathopoulos admitting to the assault, and given a fine and unsupervised probation for two years. Quote: “The judge ordered her not to have any contact with Thomas and her store, whether face-to-face or through social media, and added a specific warning about indirect contact through third parties, including the dozen or so witches who filled three rows in the courtroom yesterday.” Stathopoulos had “the support of the Wiccan community” according to her lawyer, Scott Dullea.

Is the Chico Goddess Temple doomed? According to the Chico News and Review, noise complaints for an illegal festival held four years ago has led to a much larger struggle to survive and gain the permits needed to stay open. Owner Robert Seals thinks that hostility to Goddess religion might underlay the resistance he’s encountered in obtaining the permits he needs. Quote: “This is nothing new, worship of the Goddess, but it goes up against a lot of fundamental religions.” You can learn more about this struggle, and the upcoming appeal hearing, here.

That’s it for now! Happy Friday the 13th! Feel free to discuss any of these links in the comments, some of these I may expand into longer posts as needed.

The indigenous people of this region bore much of the brunt. The Saami tribe, for one, has lived centuries in Russia’s northwest, near the Norwegian border. Saami people were forcibly collectivized on farms under Stalin. Nadezhda Lyashenko, the Saami woman singing traditional tribal music here, can recount the horror stories. Her grandfather, a reindeer shepherd, was shot in 1937, accused of being a spy after he crossed into Finland chasing a reindeer herd. After decades of relative peace, Lyashenko says, trouble seems to be returning to her native Arctic lands. She sees Russia and other world powers in a race for oil and gas, ignoring the potential impact to a part of the Earth that’s been rarely touched. “The Arctic is just so fragile,” she says. “This time, it’s a research boat going out there. It’s like the prick of a needle, and the land will heal. But if they go with knives, with spears, they could break everything. And then what?”